rounds on capitol hill. harry reid is demanding republicans hold a hearing on the nomination. he met with patrick leahy the ranking member of the senate judiciary committee. some have expressed an openness to meet with garland. senator lindsey graham endorsed senator ted cruz for president. in february senator graham wasn't supportive. >> if you kill ted cruz on the floor of the senate and the trial was in the senate nobody could convict you. [laughter] mark: he says rallying around ted cruz may be the only way to stop donald trump. blocked the cabinet. he says he was an attempt to hide him from a corruption

examination. the white house will lay out a vision of greater freedoms in a speech in havana. global news 24 hours a day powered by our journalists in 150 news bureaus around the world. i'm mark crumpton. bloomberg news is next. cory: i'm emily -- emily: i'm emily chang. this is bloomberg west. i speak with brian chesky about his vision and the company's plan for an ipo. google pulling back on the robotics business selling the robot company boston dynamics after they bought it two years ago. what does it mean? is it finally take off time for virtual reality?

today we check out sony hardware. first, to our lead. google putting its boston dynamics unit up for sale. you see a two-legged robot maintaining its balance. pushing the be envelope but a different story was playing out behind the scenes. according to two people, executives at google decided boston dynamics will not produce a marketable product in the next two years or generate revenue. for more we are joined by brad stone and jack clark. what happened here? what went wrong? brad: google is now out for that. there is an orthodoxy at out the back about creating companies

within the structure that can have products and revenue. that is part of the thought to bring in executives that would be interested in creating value. saying, boston dynamics are on the east coast. it's a research shop. they were seen as being not corrupt alert -- collaborative at google. that with the fact that it is a research shop, it has led to this outcome. emily: they bought how many different companies? jack: the others are producing work in research but the difference it was wildly advanced compared to the others. the other robot companies look like frankenstein arms. dull lookinglar robots. boston dynamics makes fluid looking things that are futuristic.

the robot hardware was ahead of the software to make it do interesting things. emily: what about the grand plan? wasn't the idea to reinvent the supply chain? reinvent reduction lines? was a goal with new products. we got minutes of a meeting between all the robotics a longtimeled by google executive and he was saying we can't spend 30% of our budget n on robots that have a 0 year time frame. .here was frustration whatever the grand plan was, i don't think we got a clear picture. emily: those videos have been controversial. who buys this kind of company?

toyota, amazon. warehouses. toyota hired gill pratt. he used to use boston dynamics in competitions. emily: do you think we could see more exits like this from google russian mark -- google? brad: certainly. we might see more acquisitions and talent to come in and work under alphabet. emily: should we give them credit for trying? jack: we should give them credit for trying. they are still trying in certain areas. this may be too futuristic. emily: i guess is where is this

leading? where are they going? jack: it is around simple things like can i pick up this note book without dropping it? from the bit different boston dynamics robots. brad: all the others were folded into google x. if you are not working on answers to the problems we have identified, we will reassign you. some of this robotics talent has left google. there is not a big certainty that robotics is the answer to solutions google needs to solve. we may not see much of the future in the near term for robotics and now for that. emily: all right. brad stone and jack clark. thank you both.

i want to get a quick check on adobe. the company reported profits of $.66 a share driven by demand for the cloud-based services. 25-1 $.38 billion. adobe boosted annual sales and profits targeting $5.8 billion in revenue in 2016. let's drill down away from desktop software. cory johnson is joining us now from new york. cory: if you think about what going for the, change of selling license software in a box, to selling software on the cloud, it is an attractive model but hard change to make. you get one big payment. you recognize all the revenues right away. if you sell in the cloud you have to recognize software over

the duration of the customer and that could be 36 months. this airoing to get pocket where you are making a shift to the cloud but the income looks terrible. adobe seems to have made that shift and you see and revenue growth. growth, it ise growing at a terrific clip in the most recent quarter. ec 22%. you can see a steady progression where it is picking up all the way to 22%. when you drill down lower and look at the two different types of products, the old software and the box and cloud software, you can see what a disaster has been. negative numbers across the board. -13%. that is bad news. when you look at the cloud stuff that is positive and growing.

a little bit slower because the transition has been made. 50% growth. a little bit better than last quarter. things may pick up for adobe. a below bit more interesting. they have figured out the cloud business and made the most of the transition and benefits. accruing in a lot of ways in terms of managing expenses and seeing growth on the cloud digitally. emily: we talk some much about how the war isn't over yet read what piece of the cloud does adobe want? >> they are focused on creative professionals. people working in the fields of advertising. they have a corollary business that is very interesting where they are looking at the way companies are using marketing and helping social media ads appear.

adobe has always been focused. but really focused on the two businesses and the big business of creative professionals exploding on the internet. emily: all right. thank you. stock we are watching, apple shares on the rise. the stock has climbed 8%. apple will unveil a smaller and cheaper iphone. analysts are out with a mixed outlook. a major apple supplier posted disappointing earnings. analysts say that is a bad sign. capital markets don't think they will report anything for apple's bottom line. we have full coverage monday. coming up, need a babysitter? a chef? a florist? airbnb may be able to help.

add-on services coming later this year. tony makes a splash with a seriously price competitive vr headset. is it too late in the game? we discussed late in this hour.

cory: airbnb -- emily: airbnb is branching out into customer travel experiences testing a service for hooking add-ons to your trip. internally it is being called magical traps. olnod to the brian chesky id disney.

>> tests are going well. nothing is announced yet. when people look at airbnb it is easy to see it as homes and cities. a better way is we have hosts. a community of people. they are neighborhoods. the people go to a place they want much more than a home. they want to be part of a neighborhood. how can we immerse you in the neighborhood? that is what we are doing. airbnbi'm a big customer. i would love babysitting service. i would love help with restaurants. how are you thinking about how you can expand the service? of it comes down to what customers want. there is the more transactional things and community center things. it is about spending time with

customers. paul graham is our first investor. he set you should make something people want. there is a secret. make something you want. what do i want? i want to feel part of a community. that's the whole idea. emily: do you think you will build these things yourself or why acquisitions? guest: we will have to wait and see. emily: we are coming up on the one year in cuba. what have you learned? guest: it is the fastest-growing country in the world. we have 4000 homes there. it has been amazing. these cities took many years to get to this scale. what i have learned is this is something that has existed for generations. the idea of sharing your home predates airbnb. a lot of people describe cuba as a place that is room nested of the past. it's a place that will look back on and say it was living in the

future. counterintuitive. but it is a very community-oriented economy. they have home sharing, restaurants in living rooms. i think actually more and more this is how cities in the united states will look like. emily: china is a big priority. how much time are you spending in china? guest: i was there a number of times. it is a huge priority. one of the largest territories in the world. our business grew 700% last year. you have hundreds of millions of young chinese travelers that want to leave and have no predisposition as how they want to travel. emily: have you stayed in chinese airbnb's? guest: i have. i have stayed in some nice apartments in shanghai. they are nice.

a very traditional local dwelling in a courtyard. it was very different. our hosts were passionate. shanghai, the first time i was in shanghai last fall. i could not appreciate how built up it was. it was a large metropolitan city. focus?what is your next where are you going to be focusing your attention? >> china is a big focus. latin america. we have the olympics coming this year. rio is one of our biggest cities in the world. we have 20,000 homes in rio. 600,000 people went to brazil a few years ago for the world cup. one in five people stayed in airbnb.

it was a huge opportunity. guest: it is valued at $25 billion. i know you don't compare yourself to them. in this environment when we see a lot of private tech companies being written down how do you make sure you are raising money at a response of valuation? guest: we are not raise any more money at this point. i don't think we will need more capital. is we started airbnb in a financial crisis. august 11, 2008. that was the window of when we started this company. we started in a recession with the door closed to us. i was introduced to investor. no one wanted to invest. that was our foundation. we are a scrappy company. any upmarket or downmarket this company is going to be fine and was founded in a bad economy.

people are more likely to want to seek additional ways to get income. long arc ontake a these things. emily: what does the road to ipo look like? when does that happen? guest: a great company should always be ready to go public. you want operate like a public company. but we don't have any initial need or need for capital. we deftly don't have plans for the next two years. after that we will see. i thought he was going to announce the ipo then and there. brian chesky there. why it took so long to kick a legal hotel -- illegal hotels off the site. what they are doing in new york. and we unmask the man behind a snarky twitter persona. he joins us in our studio. ♪

emily: back to airbnb. the startup has made a focus on diversity a huge priority. numbers are better than many big tech companies. audie 6% of employees are women. i asked why he is making this a priority now sooner rather than later. it is nevernk that too early to start focusing on diversity. the more diverse the company the more successful it will be. more than anybody else, it is in our dna. on new year's eve 1.1 billion people were living together. they came from 190 countries in the world. you can go anywhere if you are included.

diversity is totally hand-to-hand with that. we have to make people feel like they are welcome. they can't look and feel the same way. diversity will make you more successful. workforce is 46% female which is far better than most other tech companies. having the benefit of closer to 50-50 when it comes to men and women? guest: first of all we have a basic principle, if you have an office or a place like a workforce it should map to your community and the country you are in. many people in silicon valley, --e of us design for postal proportional demographics. we are trying to move towards that. there is no question creativity comes from ideas that converged

together. if your you have their abuse and perspectives that is going to be so limited. kicked illegal hotels off the system. why did it takes long to get aggressive? how do you make sure they don't come back? guest: we work really hard. we think removing people for the last two years, we remove them every single day. thousands and thousands of homes. we issued a community compact. ofdon't want to be a part the problem. we want to be part of the solution. it is hard to know when a home is a permanent home. it can be easily identified what an illegal hotel is. we have worked around the country to make sure they are not part of the problem.

we ultimately have a basic principle. we want to go to a city and enrich the area we serve. the vast majority is enriching. i don't want to say 100% is perfect. he will always make sure it gets better. emily: airbnb was having a conference in paris on the day of the terrorist attacks. there is a big debate going on between apple and the fbi. where'd you stand on this issue? what if the fbi said they wanted data about your users? guest: we comply with subpoenas and government. you have to draw a stand. the attorney general wanted user data on all users. we went to court over that issue. if we think it is overreaching and broad. we do compile cities. you have to draw a line based on your principles. the privacy of our customers is the most important thing.

emily: brian chesky speaking to me from the build national gala in san francisco. nike is out of the fitness devices phase even though sportswear is getting more high tech. they are filled shoes that tighten up your foot without laces. they were inspired by back to the future. they will hit the market later this year. we don't know yet how much they will cost. coming up, the age of virtual-reality may finally be here. we dig deeper. ♪

mark: let's begin with a check of your first word news. secretary of state has decided atrocities committed by islamic state against christians and other minorities in iraq and

syria should be designated genocide. increasing number of arab fighters are enlisting in syria u.s. backed militia. recent victories against the islamic state are helping enlistment efforts. the number of arabs in the kurdish syrian democratic forces doubled over the next month. sepp blatter has filed an appeal to annul his band from soccer. he was ban last year after being found guilty of unethical conduct. his salary was also revealed. he was paid $3.8 million in 2015. is pushingheat wave the earth into uncharted territory. it was the hottest february in

137 years of record-keeping. local news 24 hours a day powered by our journalists in 150 news bureaus around the world. i'm mark crumpton. it is just after 6:30 here in new york. sprawlned by bloomberg allen with a look at the market. allen. paul: we are seeing the australian dollar push back above 76. futures indicate gains on the local market as well. we have new zealand opened for 90 minutes. up 1/10 of 1%. we are expecting declines on the nikkei. the u.s. department of justice

and securities exchange commission will look into the accounting practices. also, china mobile announce their profit falling. we have watched that stock as well. locally we will check out shares after the ceo announced he will be stepping down after three years in the top job. he can to the company at a difficult time of multibillion-dollar write-downs and he will be replaced by the head of the call and copper division. he recently oversaw expansion of the huge project in mongolia. that is just a taste of what we're watching here. i'm in sydney australia. emily: virtual reality is dominating the agenda at the game developers conference in san francisco.

believe the age of the new medium has finally arrived. the investors laser dan on price tag for the playstation as a series competitive advantage and sent shares higher on the news. joining me now, sean layden. thank you for joining us. i got to try out your the our product when it was project morpheus back at comic-con. significantly. tell me where you have taken it. guest: we have taken it down to the that. guest: i'm knocking down product with my head here. it's an experience like no other. platform.tirely new we are excited about that. your price point is

significantly below there is printed yours is becoming out before theirs. -- there is coming up before yours. could that put you at a disadvantage? guest: i don't think so. we are launching worldwide. we want to make sure we get into retail to demonstrate the unit. it's impossible to explain in print or on television what virtual reality is like. we are to work with our key retail providers to get a chance to try it. then you become a believer. guest: a sony executive told the gaming site if you just talk about the high-end quality i would admit oculus may have better the arm. the biggest advantage is it works with ps for. that is a compliment or a dig. >> i think that is a compliment.

he is acknowledging oculus will be the best vr experience. we look at this early first-generation. it is supported by enthusiasts and hard-core gamers. they want the best. having the best is a great place to be. >> is that a compliment or a dig? guest: i think he was trying to express by the fact that the oculus required high-end pc to run it it will generate more speed and power across revolution items like that. we are happy we will address 36 million ps floors that are are ready right now. emily: you are a big gamer but you haven't tried this or the rift yet. what is it like? >> all of our engineering teams are weighted with the platforms. i'm here to evangelize. i haven't had the time. he requires a $60 camera.

why not include that? guest: our route to market, there may be different packages. is 399.to show it emily: how many playstation owners already own a camera? guest: that is probably in the double-digit millions. we are looking at that as an easier entry point. we will have that put together in a competitive way. emily: we talked about going mainstream, passing the mom test. do they need a killer app to do that? what is that apple? guest: it is a new entertainment platform. it is creating new experiences. we're going to have 50 games ready. a lot of them with a small and independent developers. they see it is going to happen.

the killer app, i would wage we don't know what that is right now. it will really feel -- it will reveal itself. unveiling a new entertainment unit which oversees online features into one new us-based unit. matters fory this your role. has grown sok plan it closerat bringing together with playstation and looking at our digital future across games is the best way to focus and get faster and make decisions against that. emily: will we see job because? guest: that is not part of this. very excited to try the new headset when it hits the market. thank you. thank you for stopping by.

tomorrow we will pick up the conversation with htc's head of the are. he is focused on the $800 by. alibabaking of the our, explains how it can enhance the shopping experience of its 400 million users. they have set up a lead to research this and explore how it alibabapplied to other services. coming up, we are going to meet finally the guy behind startup out jackson. with thoughts like i've got one hand in my pocket and the other ordering and uber cap. -- cab. ] ♪

emily: uber is making it easy for drivers to collect cash whenever they want. the company announced a program allowing drivers to deposit earnings from each ride into an over debit card account. the program is available only for drivers in san francisco who were only paid once a week. uber competitor lyft wrote out a similar program. ceo forme now is the the bay area. thank you so much for joining us. left has been using this as a recruiting tool. you do have to open a new bank account. why do it that way? guest: one of the things drivers love is the flexibility to decide where to work and went to work. when theyan decide

can get paid. one of the big differences that we have tried to focus on is to make sure there are no fees involved as well as the fact that there is not going to be a minimum map of earnings they can take money out. it improves on what is already out there. it is like a war for talent in your business. about uber wenk are trying to create the best platform for drivers and riders. whether it is on a great living or get a ride. we think about various types of innovation. one of the things we are investing heavily on is the pool. now you can get a right anywhere in the bay area and that is additional ways drivers can earn more money. by creating new innovations we are hopefully going to create

the best possible experience for drivers and riders. cory: a lot of people -- emily: a lot of people used it out there. there was nobody who knew how it would impact google black. -- uber black. how do you manage those trade-offs? think it is the future. emily: bigger than uber x? guest: it could be. it is one of those rare win, win, wins. actually earn more because they are more utilized throughout the day. one of the great things we see publicic transit and transportation is always open because people use it as the first mile last mile competition. it really benefits a driver and a rider and various types of policy roles.

huge uber eats power user. you are just launching a standalone app and expanding coverage. how big of a business is this going to be? guest: we think it could be a big opportunity. we have launched the breeds for several months in multiple cities. we launch a standalone app this week. that is what offer more options, more hours and geographies for people to choose fantastic meals at a low price. talk to me about the economic spray they're great for consumers. are you making the economics work? guest: the big difference between us and the other players is we already have the biggest network of drivers out there. a driver on the uber east platform can earn money driving people, driving goods or driving

food. that flexibility makes uber eats and them the best option for drivers. for the restaurants, they get access to the millions of people who already use uber. that is a big advantage relative to what is out there. anecdotallyems like lyft is everywhere. cooper is surging a lot. are you feeling the pressure? is there any risk of losing your supremacy? guest: i don't know the market share. in san incredibly raw francisco. we strive for the best platform and the best ride for writers that go from point a to point b. look at the way we have orested in san francisco,

the innovation we did with instant pay. we are consolation running for the next innovation to be the best possible thing for drivers and riders. gone: as the percentage up? that prices are surging? >> dynamic pricing goes up and down depending on supply and demand. that is one of the things that we are getting driver partners to get on the platform. this is why when we think about product innovation it matters so much we have to make sure it is the best platform for drivers to earn. search will come down. emily: all right. no small job there. thank you so much for joining us. switching gears to earnings. a 45% jump in sales. is increasing spending on

content to draw users from the competition. joiningbreak it down, me from hong kong, give us a highlight. earnings were better than expected. that was driven by online sales and mobile games. if you look at what simpson is doing they are starting to experiment with this online advertising. they are trying to tread a delicate path where they add more inventory. but not trying to be too intrusive to bother their user experiences. isly: the cost of growth going up. why is that? >> they spent a lot of money ranging from sports to hollywood content, hollywood tv series and movies. they are a huge fan of m&a and and cartoons.

what they are doing is trying to convert these ip's between movies, novels, comics. even mobile games and toys. when they have a large range of can turn into mobile games. emily: they followed in ps expeditingotste with advertising. how is that going? you look at what they have done so far it is pretty significant. especially with their instant messaging apps. they have a combined level in users. in terms of how they want to do it, they want to do it gradually and stable lead. they want to increase inventory but not too over the top so users get annoyed. thank you for that

update. coming up, he is here in the studio. we will talk to him after the quick break.

emily: it's time to find out who is having the best day ever. today, silicon valley's most handle hastter decided to come forward. amassedompson followers with his twitter persona. us, a partner at angel list and creator of this phenomenon. how does it feel going public?

guest: it's been a crazy day. emily: how did we find him? thatad stone figured out jackson was parker. something people asked at parties. everyone thought it was been horowitz. >> bragg got in touch with parker and try to convince them to let us talk. maybe with parker decided to hang up his hat he thought [inaudible] -- >> brad is great. we got to know one another. he said i went to call you in march. emily: you have been sitting on this a long time. mentioned is you

stopped tweeting in december. i felt like it had run its course. he called me in march and i said ok. let's do it. emily: we pulled out our favorite tweets. is twitter wanted to up engagement they would place a withwith this -- heart this gift. bleep you are doing even matter? what inspired you to do this? guest: it wasn't a plan. i might have come up with a different brand and a way of approaching it. my friend roger and i set up the account. we started joking around with it . some friend started following it and eventually some people who had more followers started retreating and the rest is history. you had entrepreneurs

begging you for real advice. why slow down now? guest: there is other stuff to work on. tweeting a lot. it is time-consuming. guest: it doesn't take that much time. writing takes me a lot more time . a tweet come you are on the train platform reading something and reacting to it and moving on read i don't think it is as much time. >> one of the things parker said that i thought was interesting, he started the account with the idea it could be a place to test whether ideas without a real name had a great status attached to them and could gain traction. true. proven that is they still trusted it with so much authority. point end that prove its

where it no longer became useful. it is a thought leader. the sort of thing that was meant to be tested by the experiment. it made sense to me that it might be time for it to be gone. emily: what is next? guest: i think my favorite thing people say is when you say those shouldin person -- you see the things i say in person. these are things i say as much. and when to keep working on the things we are working on. we have tons of stuff to work on. so, that is keeping me busy at the moment. also behindou startup dj callit? guest: i am not. emily: you're going to be live tweeting next week? emily: i'm doing an ama. he asked me to do it prior to this.

i'm still on the internet but i think to the extent that i still will changeunt having a name behind it. emily: thank you for sharing your story with us. it is great to meet the man behind the avatar. a quick disclaimer. he is a participant in bloomberg beta's open scout program. that does it for this edition of bloomberg west. thank you so much for watching. equities quick teaser of my longform interview show studio 1.0 with david nevins. ♪

♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: we begin this evening with the supreme court. president obama dominated merrick garland to take the seat of late incident justice scalia. federal courthe of appeals for the d c circuit. speaking from the rose garden, the president demanded a fear hearing -- fair hearing. reiterated their intent to block of that process. and now we have jay michaelson of the deal he faced.